But he stopped her. ‘Florence, it’s all right. I understand.’
‘I need to find work, Jack, and somewhere I can begin my life properly here in England. I’ve got the ration book you obtained for me but nothing else.’
‘The passport and papers I got hold of in Spain will be fine here. They prove who you are, either for a job or a place to rent.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘The British Embassy in Madrid was already using fake medical certificates to get hold of Franco’s “sick” British prisoners. With the false passports, they were then moved to Gibraltar, as were you. From there they were repatriated to Britain and that’s exactly what John Lyons, the British diplomat with whom I was rather usefully at school, eventually did for us.’
He gave her a quick grin and continued.
‘Added to that, your grandmother was English, your father half English, and with the record of his work in the Home Office and your long residence in Richmond, it shouldn’t be difficult to obtain legal residency here, if that’s what you’re going to need in the long term. It may not even be necessary.’
‘That does make me feel better.’
‘Make Meadowbrook your home for now,’ he said. ‘I’m going to be away much of the time anyway, so you’ll have the place to yourself. Take your time.’
And she had hoped that he was secretly as glad to see her as she was to see him.
That had been over two weeks ago, and Florence had settled back in while Jack had been away. He didn’t tell her what he was doing, or where he was, but she imagined he must have been taken under the wing of a Special Operations Branch in a government ministry of somekind. She was no fool. He’d mentioned he was attending meetings and hinted that they were connected to his old architecture business, but something about his stiff tone of voice hadn’t quite rung true. Florence doubted that he’d be sent back to France – his injured arm had healed, but it did still cause him pain and wasn’t as strong as his other – so perhaps he was training new recruits or something like that.
Anyway, it was none of her business.
She had become accustomed to the sound of RAF aircraft flying over, no longer looking up every time, and now she was doing something she loved. Sufficient sugar was hard to come by, but she’d been lucky to find a tiny lemon growing in a pot in a dilapidated greenhouse, and half a bottle of sweet sherry lingering in the drinks cabinet. She opened the oven door and a tempting aroma of baking filled the air. Jack had sent a note to let her know when he hoped to be back and, all being well, that would be tomorrow, so she’d wanted to make something delicious to welcome him home. The combination of lemon, a smidgen of butter, and sherry sweetness was mouth-watering. After all, who could resist a cake?
She went over her final conversation with Jack after she’d returned from her mother’s and before he left.
‘Claudette asked me to do something for her,’ she’d said. ‘It’s odd, but she wants me to find her sister, Rosalie, who ran away from Paris twenty years ago. No one has seen her since.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘Maman showed me a box with something Rosalie senther. A Maltese Cross attached to a rosary, so that’s where my mother thinks she must be. Malta. Rosalie’s note said nothing, only that she wanted her help. But as it’s been quite a few years since then, I reckon she could be dead.’
‘There isn’t any way you can get to Malta now,’ he’d said.
‘The war. I know. But I don’t even know where I would start to ask. People are missing all over the world.’
‘Why has she asked you now?’
Florence had shaken her head, but whatever the reason, another trip was the last thing she needed. Her mother’s request had made her feel uneasy and there had already been enough secrets. If she did go looking for Rosalie, she didn’t know what she’d find and she was still coming to terms with the other terrible events of the yearandwho she was now. The landscape of the past had altered irrevocably with the revelation of who her real father was.
She sighed and turned away from the cake, now cooling on a wire rack. Most foods were covered by the rationing system – butter, bacon, cheese, sugar and so on – so a cake was a rare treat. They could get hold of fruit and vegetables, and they were fortunate to have Ronnie and Gladys’s farm nearby. Florence could hear Gladys coming up the garden path right now.
‘Coo-ee,’ Gladys called. ‘Anyone in?’ and she pushed open the door.
‘Hello,’ Florence said. ‘Please come on in.’
‘My, that is a fine smell, dear. Dab hand you are at the baking. Jack’s a lucky man.’
As her duck waddled in behind her, she lifted the striped tea towel covering the basket she was carrying and said, ‘See what I’ve got for you today.’
And Florence glanced down at six large brown eggs, butter Gladys had churned, and a few rashers of bacon from their own pigs.
‘I really can’t accept all this. You only recently brought us all those vegetables.’
‘Poof. Jackie’s like one of the family,’ said Gladys, her dark eyes twinkling, ‘and a war hero. I’ll not see him starve.’
‘You’re very kind.’
